All Hail Ryan Hall

SUNDAY MORNING IN HOUSTON, AMERICAN RYAN HALL ran a race that observers are already calling one of the 2 or 3 best-ever for an American distance runner. The observers are right.

Hall won the Aramco Half Marathon in 59:43, more than a minute faster than Marc Curp's old American Record for the distance, 60:55, set more than two decades ago in 1985. He finished more than 2:30 ahead of Fasil Bizuneh (1:02:20) and Olympic Marathon silver medalist Meb Keflezighi (1:02:22). Frankly, winning a half-marathon by that margin is like winning a basketball game 97-35. It's not a race; it's a rout.

In terms of pure brilliance, few other American performances are on the same level as Hall's half-marathon, perhaps just two: Bob Kennedy's American record 5000 meters (12:58.21, 1996), and Khalid Khannouchi's then-world-record marathon 2:05:38 of 2002 (it's still the American record). Todd Williams's American record 15K on the roads (42:22, 1995) is a notch behind.

A "performance," as I'm defining it, is a time-trial; it's what you see on the face of a stopwatch. Performances are apples to the oranges of competitive results. The great American results are the well-known gold medals by people like Bob Schul, Billy Mills, Frank Shorter, and Joan Benoit Samuelson in the Olympics, and Craig Virgin and Lynn Jennings in the World Cross-Country Championships. This isn't to imply that Hall's half marathon represents a lesser effort than the great results, only that the two are different.

People are noting something else different about Hall's performance. It seemed to come out of nowhere, whereas the other great performances and results were achieved by famous, veteran athletes. There's some truth to this, and it makes Hall's race all the more exciting. However, Hall, now 24, didn't exactly invent himself in Houston.

Way back in the nearly-forgotten days of December, 2000, he finished third behind two guys named Dathan Ritzenhein and Alan Webb in the most famous Footlocker Cross-Country race. (And his kid brother Chad won Footlocker just last month.) Last October Ryan set an American 20K record when he ran 57:54 in the IAAF World 20K Road Championships, where he finished 11th in a field loaded with top East Africans. (In Houston, he passed 20K in an unofficial 57:06, a time that would have placed him third in the IAAF race).

But the Hall race that first made me blink was last winter's National Cross-Country Championships in New York City. He won over a top American field by a big margin, and made it look ridiculously easy. I mean, he just glided over the course, at least to all appearances. Afterwards, I remember sending an email to a few friends. It said something like: "I think I've just seen the future of American distance running." I'm sure many others felt the same way. Hall's win was that impressive.

More recently, I've been sending friends a different email. This one looks forward to the 2008 US Men's Olympic Marathon Trials, to be held this November in Central Park. The email has said something like: "I think one of the guys who makes the team is going to be a first-time marathoner." This has never happened before, because it was disallowed by Trials regulations. Previously, you had to run a marathon to qualify for the Marathon Trials. This time, you don't. You can reach the Trials with fast times at shorter distances. (My kudos to the rule makers who came up with this forward-thinking new approach.)

At any rate, Hall has been at the top of my list of those who might make the Olympic Marathon Team in their first marathon. Now, it looks like I'll be wrong. In a shocking (to me anyway!) statement after his Houston win, Hall said that he's planning to run a spring marathon. He thinks that will help him be better prepared for November. (See the video interview here.)

Apparently, he hasn't picked one yet. But when he lines up for that marathon, a lot of people are going to be looking on with a lot of anticipation. I'll certainly be one of them.